


that moment where words run dry

by Ally147



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drabble Collection, F/M, fluff for days, just smooches, probably not a ton of actual plot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:01:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 8,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26117653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ally147/pseuds/Ally147
Summary: A collection of Zutara kiss drabbles and literally nothing else (okay maybe someotherthings, too... later)
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 49
Kudos: 261





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> You might already know that I'm currently working on revising my Masters thesis with the intention of beginning my PhD at the end of the year. As you can imagine, it's been remarkably stressful, and I'm having no fun at all. Behold, then, the fruits of my procrastination.
> 
> There's six drabbles complete so far (with more to come; I'm not unstressed yet). I wrote them with the intention of merging them into a fully self-contained one-shot (they all occur in the same universe), but I kind of like them better separate, anyway. I'll be updating maybe every couple of days? I don't know yet. It'll depend on a lot of things
> 
> Also, while this work does have a Phantom of the Opera song lyric as a title, it's unrelated to the 'what raging fire...' series (the lyrics just speak to my base, zutara-loving lizard brain, ya know?)

Their first kiss is a frantic, needful thing, burning with life and death in equal measure.

There’s relief in the exhale of his breath on hers. Joy in his heartbeat. Sparks in the trails of their roving hands. Something incandescent in the way he’s returning it all inch for inch, like he wanted this as much as she did. She wonders if it’s something he knew he wanted all along, or if it’s something he just decided he needed.

His tongue drags across her lips. She decides not to care so much.

She tastes the lightning on him and chases it into his mouth. His hands tremble, one buried in her hair, pulling tight enough to sting, the other wrapped like a bruise around her waist. She falls against him, melts into his hold, part embrace and part something else.

The roar of wind above and the shrill, piercing wail of Azula’s screams below dulls into a constant, mighty thud which echoes in her heart, that she feels mirrored in Zuko, deep beneath the place where her hand is pressed against his chest.

Something inside her begs her to stop. Or him. Whoever can drum up the common sense to end this before… she’s not sure how to end that thought. But this isn’t the place, or the time, or the reason, and what about Aang, or Mai, or —

Voices sound out beyond the destroyed gates. She yanks herself away, and he follows her until the last possible moment. He stares at her, stupefied and wondrous all at once. She swallows and takes his hand to help him stand on shaky legs. She steps aside and crosses her arms as the first wave of guards and sages and medics flood them and begin the first breathless rounds of questioning.


	2. Chapter 2

Their second (and third and fourth and fifth) kiss comes weeks after the first, the product of such straining tension that even the driest of political roundtable discussions couldn’t dim it.

A mistake, she thinks to herself, dazed and light, but that’s not really the right word for something she can’t regret. Not when she’s thought of nothing else since that first one, ashy and dark, salty and as addictive as anything.

He has her pressed into a shadowed alcove, her back cold against the stone wall, her front hot with his proximity. One of his hands is brushing the sliver of skin at her waist afforded by the cut of the Fire Nation dress she’s been wearing during the peace discussions. The other is buried deep in her hair again, disturbing the intricate patterns of braids and loops one of the maids styled for her earlier that morning. All hers can do is clutch at his shoulders and hold him close, fascinated by the flex and play of the muscles beneath her fingertips.

“This isn’t a good idea, is it,” she whispers as his lips leave hers and latch onto her neck. Footsteps grow and recede softly in the background, matching her thumping pulse.

“No.” He lets out a long breath against her skin, raising goose bumps in his wake. “Probably not.”

“Someone will find us.”

Kiss. “Maybe.”

“You’ll get into trouble.”

Another. “Maybe.”

He doesn’t sound like he cares much, and neither does she, really. Talks are done for the day. No one needs her right now, though she’s sure someone’s going to come looking for him soon enough. Her eyes flutter closed, and her breath comes out in short pants as his tongue traces patterns against her pulse.

“Z-Zuko?”

He glances up at her, his lips red, his eyes unfocussed, and his headpiece adorably crooked. He blinks. “Yeah?”

She moves her arms through the twist of their bodies and adjusts his headpiece until it sits straight on his loosened topknot. “What are we even doing?”

He swallows. The shaggy edges of his fringe flop forward into his eyes. She pushes them back and he presses his face into her hand. “Do you want to stop?”

She smiles. “That’s not what I said.”

“I don’t know what we’re doing,” he admits. “I just…”

Her thumb skirts the bottom edge of his scar. “Just what?”

He slides his fingers along her temple, down the slope of her nose, across the bow of her sore, swollen lips. She shudders. “I like this. With you, I mean.”

She grins, leans in, kisses him again. _Six_. Never mind the ache. “I like this with you, too.”


	3. Chapter 3

She forgoes the offer of a palanquin to take her down to the docks, where a merchant trading vessel is offering her swift passage back home. Zuko rolls his eyes and mutters to himself, even as he dashes off and changes into plainclothes, with a wide hat to cover his scar.

“Very sneaky,” Katara says, grinning as he runs out to meet her by the palace gate. She hoists a dark blue bag over her shoulder. “No one will ever suspect.”

“And the question of the strange nobody who escorted the esteemed Master Katara of the Southern Water Tribe down to the harbour will be pondered for weeks to come.” He takes her other bag and offers her his free hand. “Shall we?”

She takes it and smiles up at him. “We shall. Do you think the gossip be more or less than if they all knew it was you?”

“I think they’d be vastly more interested in you than who’s escorting you anywhere. Honestly, I can’t say I blame them. You’re extremely interesting.”

“You make me sound like some kind of celebrity,” she grumbles. The few people who point at her and whisper her name and rank loudly to their companions does nothing to help her scowl.

“You’re not far off the mark,” he says, pulling the brim of his hat low over his scarred eye as they enter the bustling market ring of the massive, circular city.

“You know,” he says, once they’re sufficiently swallowed by noise, “I’m going to miss you.”

She smiles. “I’ll miss you, too, but it won’t be for long.”

“Two weeks,” he says on a hum. “Uncle’s been sending me a letter every other day with new requests and changes, but it’ll be nice to have everyone together again.”

She squeezes his hand and ducks up to press a quick kiss to his cheek. “Yeah, it will.”

“I…” He stops short, coughs. His unscarred cheek flushes bright pink. “Should we tell everyone about… this?”

Katara’s step falters, and Zuko moves quickly to right her, but she pulls him into a narrow alley between a busy tailor and a less-busy shoemaker. The sounds of the market buzz around them, but nothing is louder than the nervous, frantic, waiting thud of her heart. “Zuko,” she starts, clutching their joined hands between their bodies. “Do we know what this is?”

Zuko sighs and stares down at their twisted fingers. “Maybe not. But I know I’m not doing this with anyone else.”

“Neither am I.”

He tips his forehead against hers, sending his wide hat askew. “I don’t really want to be doing this with anyone else, either.”

She smiles. “Neither do I. So, what does that mean? Do you want to keep doing… this, with me?”

“More than anything.” He brings their joined hands to his lips and kisses along the rise and fall of her knuckles. “I think it’s worth finding out what that means, don’t you?”

“I think so, too.” She reaches towards his face, trails her fingers along the outer edge of his scar, and tugs his lips down to hers. It’s all clinking teeth and bumping noses and falling hats as neither of them can get their smiles and laughter under control, wandering hands and more electricity than the lightning bolt that almost stole him.

It’s their thirty-second kiss, and the least-coordinated one by far, but she wonders if maybe the count ought to be reset after this one.


	4. Chapter 4

Their thirty-third kiss takes her (and the others sitting and standing in the middle of Iroh’s new teahouse) by surprise.

He’s the last to arrive. Not completely unexpected, but she finds herself a little disappointed anyway. Only a single letter each makes up their correspondence over the past two weeks, and neither dared to prod too firmly at the new _something_ between them. Katara still isn’t certain that she didn’t dream up the entire thing. She wouldn’t mind making doubly sure that whole last conversation between them actually happened.

At long last, when the doors give way and he’s standing there, breathless like he’s just run a marathon, her heart thumps with such force that she wouldn’t be shocked if the whole room could hear it.

He offers his hellos in a remote sort of way and scans the room. When he finds her standing by the table where her brother is painstakingly rendering their likenesses in messy strokes of ink, his gaze narrows as the gold in his eyes turns molten. She’s pretty sure now that their last meeting wasn’t a dream. The moment crystallises like ice between them, and shatters when he lunges forward, and she throws herself into his waiting arms halfway, kissing him breathless like she's dreamed of doing for the past two weeks.

“Hi,” she whispers, though it’s as loud as a bomb blast in the shocked quiet of the teahouse, when they finally pull apart.

“Hi.” He leans his forehead against hers. The heat of him has her shivering in his hold. “How are you?”

“I’m well.” She smiles, feels it shaking on her lips. “So, secret’s out?”

He grins, presses another kiss, warm, soft, and oh, so sweet, to her waiting mouth ( _thirty-four_ ). “We agreed, didn’t we?”

She hums. “I thought maybe I’d dreamed that.”

And another. And another and another and another ( _thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight_ ). “I wasn’t sure, either.”

“I’m glad I was wrong.”

His lips twitch. “Me, too.”

They have exactly five seconds to enjoy the moment before all hell breaks loose.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They're taking two of my wisdom teeth out later today and I Don't Feel Great right now. Have this kinda slap-dash drabble I cobbled together to distract myself.
> 
> (On that note there probably won't be another one of these drabbles until next week...)

Their fiftieth kiss happens at a street festival in what used to be Ba Sing Se’s Lower Ring.

They stumble upon it by accident, venturing through the newly open and unguarded gates in the walls. The music weaves like vines on the night air, and the warm breeze, heady with the scent of cinnamon and yeast, beckons them further.

She twines her fingers through Zuko’s and lets him lead her closer. “What’s happening?”

“I don’t know,” he says, glancing at the alternating pink and green lanterns strung between signposts. A pair of girls in leaf-green and daisy-yellow hanboks run past them, hand in hand, red-cheeked and giggling, towards a crowd of people spinning and dancing and singing. “End of war celebrations, probably.”

Katara grins. “So, this is what it’s like with no Dai Li, huh? It’s beautiful.”

“Yeah, it is.” He stops on the edge of the throng, candlelight shining in his eyes. A small smile creeps along the edge of his lips. “Uncle probably would have loved this.”

“You’ll have to forgive me for not being too upset that your uncle’s not with us.”

He glances at her, his smile turning sly and a little bit shy at the same time. “Actually, I think he’d very much approve of this.”

She laughs and lets him spin her into the crowd to be swallowed by the music and dance.

The first thirty seconds are like something out of a dream. Katara closes her eyes and lets Zuko hold her close and move her around, gets lost in the laughter and joy pouring off these people in waves far larger than anything she could create with water. She opens her eyes and meets Zuko’s, and she’s about to say something — something very stupid and ill-advised considering what she’s feeling in her heart and stomach is probably at least half made by atmosphere wrapping her in warmth and happiness — and flinches instead when a hard weight lands on her toes.

Again and again and again.

“I kind of thought you’d be better at this,” she tells him when he steps on her toes for the fifth time. “You’re not a good dancer at all.”

“I don’t know where you got this idea that I would be,” Zuko says, frowning at his feet.

“I assumed you’d know how, being a prince and all.”

“A prince of a nation which outlawed dancing some time ago,” he reminds her with a wry smile. “I know some dances that my mother taught me when I was young, but nothing complicated. Nothing fancy.”

“I’d teach you some of the Water Tribe dances I grew up with, but this music doesn’t really fit.”

“Music doesn’t matter much, does it?” he asks, squeezing her hand.

“Do you want to learn, Fire Lord?” She quirks a brow at him. “The head of the Fire Nation, learning a Water Tribe dance at an Earth Kingdom festival? And what do you want to bet that this is some revived Air Nomad song?”

“There’s some poetry to that, isn’t there?”

“Oh, definitely. I just don’t think anyone would believe me if I told them.”

His answering smirk is a little smug. “You’re not going to tell anyone.”

“I’m not, am I?”

“No, because tonight is yours, and mine — _ours_ — and for all your compassion, you’re not great at sharing. Not when it’s important to you.”

She doesn’t give him the satisfaction of admitting that he’s right, just pulls him close enough to lose herself in the warmth of his lips and the rhythm of the music, and maybe regret that she didn't say that stupid and ill-advised thing before, because she's definitely feeling all of it now.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you were curious, I'm fine. If anything, I think I was being a tad dramatic about it all... Turns out, getting wisdom teeth yanked in chair is basically a non-event.
> 
> I just banged this together so I can focus on my thesis edits this afternoon (so close to the end!), so please excuse the kind of rushed execution of this one!

Kiss seventy-six is a cliché, but after everything they’ve gone through together, Katara thinks they deserve something a little cliché.

The Ba Sing Se players are much better than those from Ember Island, but that’s an incredibly low bar. They’re telling a stylised, very melodramatic version of the Oma and Shu legend. One that has Iroh weeping unashamedly in the seat in front of them. That has Sokka’s arm tucked tight around Suki while they lean forward in their seats, their eyes shiny and wide in the theatre light. That has Toph fast asleep and Aang listlessly spinning air marbles in his hand. That she would be riveted by in any other circumstance, because she remembers the story and that cave and the echo of their heartbreak like it was yesterday, but —

“Zuko,” she mumbles against his lips, but it doesn’t fall from her in any way that deters him. If anything, he redoubles his efforts, tongue sliding over hers in a way that makes her lightheaded, teeth scraping over her bottom lip, hands a roving, maddening pest over her waist and in her hair.

“Yes?” he says, only a moment later but long enough for her to forget the question.

“We…” She bites down a moan as his burning lips trail fire along her throat and over her pulse. “We’re not exactly…”

He pulls back slowly, but not away, eyes molten in the dark of their back-row box. “Sorry,” he says, a little sheepish. He pushes back his hair, free of the crown tonight, and swallows. “I just…”

“Yeah, I _just_ , too.” She smiles, presses another quick kiss to his swollen lips ( _seventy-seven_ ) and rests her head on his shoulder. “But I kind of want to see how this ends.”

He wraps an arm over her shoulders and tucks her in close. “It’s a tragedy, isn’t it? They both die at the end.”

“Only Shu dies, but that’s not the point. It gives hope, don’t you think? That your love can transcend something, that it can make a difference, turn a tide, change minds, stop a war...”

She trails off, trembling though she can't guess why. She doesn’t look up at him — refuses to — but she knows he’s staring. She can feel it in the itch stealing across her body. He's silent for a long moment, then he lets out a warm breath against her hair and holds her closer, just that little bit tighter.

“Okay,” he says, the rasp in his voice more pronounced than usual. He drops a lingering kiss to her temple and keeps his lips there. “We can watch.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eh, I'm not 100% happy with this one, but it's about triple the usual length, so there's that. Enjoy!

There’s some kind of poetry in parting on kiss ninety-nine.

They’re seeing Zuko off first, three days sooner than they expected. An official-looking messenger hawk arrived early that morning with a note asking for the Fire Lord’s immediate return. Whatever light had been in Zuko’s eyes when he came back in from his morning meditation and joined her in the kitchen had disappeared in increments as he read the note, and he scowled as he burned it in his hands.

His hands tremble now as he haphazardly shoves clothes in bags, his crown perched in his messy topknot and glinting in the bright, golden sunshine pouring in from the open window. She traces hissing circles on the scratchy satin of his blanket and watches as the frown tugging at his lips turns deeper.

“Nothing fits in the bag anymore,” he mutters.

She resists the urge to roll her eyes. “Because you’re balling everything up and stuffing them in with no thought. Of course they won’t fit.”

He turns to her and glares. “You’re not helping, Katara.”

She stands, crossing her arms over her chest and narrowing her eyes. “Would you like me to?”

He glares at her a moment longer and she meets him second for second. When he lets out a sigh, dropping the shirt to the bed and running his hands over his face, she grins, wide and triumphant.

“Please,” he says, his voice muffled.

“Anyone would think you’ve never travelled before,” she teases, upending his bag onto the bed and starting over again, folding everything into neat, flat squares.

He drops his hands and snorts. “In my defence, I was on the run for most of it. Neat packing wasn't exactly a priority.”

She slides a pile of folded squares in front of him. “Roll those into tubes, then pack them. They’ll take up less space that way.”

There’s a tiny smile on his lips. “You would have been helpful to have around when I was in the Earth Kingdom before.”

“For a lot of reasons, I’d imagine.” She nudges his side with her elbow and smiles when he lets out a short chuckle. “Why are you so nervous to go back, Zuko?”

“My father causing problems notwithstanding,” he says without looking up, "wouldn’t you be nervous, too, if these were your last moments of freedom before you had to go and lead a nation?”

“You’ve done it before,” she reminds him gently. “Two whole months before we all came here. Why is it different now?”

He lets out a long, low breath. “Because I’ll be alone. For real, this time.”

“I know it’ll probably feel like that,” she murmurs, smoothing out the last flat square. “But you won’t be alone. Not really.”

He shrugs, busies himself with setting his rolled clothes into the bag. And for a moment, that’s the only sound in the room, fabric scratching against the coarse satin, his breathing, deep and even.

“You could come with me, if you wanted,” he whispers, so quietly she wonders if she imagined it before he speaks again. “Back to the Fire Nation. And we could… Not forever, I mean… just until…”

Her heart skips its next three beats, and in those spaces where those beats should be, it’s far, far too easy to picture it, what he’s asking, what it means. “Zuko…” she whispers. "You know I can't just —"

He pulls the ties on his bag into tight, vicious knots that she knows he’ll have to burn off later. “Yeah, I know,” he mutters. “Forget it.”

She sighs. “Don’t be like that, Zuko. It’s just…”

It’s just that tears pool at the thought of her southern home, of her Gran-Gran, of all the children she helped raise. The snow and the ice, too; it’s been a year since she last felt cold. Home has been so far away for so long… but home is a little bit in him, too.

“Will this be it, then?”

She blinks. “What do you mean?”

He shifts closer, so they’re standing toe-to-toe. His eyes burn molten gold and his hand traces a barely-there path along her cheek and jaw, down her neck and along her collarbone, down her arm and to her hand. Goosebumps explode across her skin, and she shivers from the heat of him.

“This,” he says. “I mean this.”

She sighs, shakes her head. “I don’t know, Zuko.”

His nose slides along her hairline. “I’m not sure I know how to let you go.”

Her breath leaves her in a rattle, and she clutches at the ties holding his tunic together. “Then don’t. Not yet, anyway.”

He kisses her forehead. “I… I’ll write when I can.”

“So will I.” She shuts her eyes, ponders those stupid words she should have told him when they were dancing at that street festival.

She opens her mouth, ready to drop them at his feet and let him do with them what he will, and the low rumble of his airship echoes overhead. Zuko stares at the ceiling and sighs. “Duty calls, I guess.”

“Yeah. I’m going to miss you,” she says instead.

A shaky approximation of a smile tilts his lips. “I’ll miss you, too.”

“You’re going to be fine.”

“I wish I had your confidence.”

“You do. Always.”

He leans in, kisses her slow and soft ( _ninety-seven_ ). Heartbreaking and heart-warming, heavy and light, perfect and lacking, a contradiction she wants to chase forever until she gets her fill.

His uncle calls, and they pull apart. Zuko hoists his bag onto his shoulder and smiles a tragic little half smile that has her rising on her tiptoes and seizing his lips again ( _ninety-eight_ ).

“Bye for now, Zuko,” she says, breathless against his mouth.

The panicked glint of his eyes mellows, though it doesn't disappear, and he kisses her one last time like he can't quite get enough. “Bye for now, Katara.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And somehow this chapter is substantially longer again, but I like it a lot this time :) Enjoy!

It’s an entire year and more before kiss one hundred.

A year she spends in her southern home, her heart in her throat over how much it’s changed. A year he spends rebuilding his country into one of peace rather than a pillar of war. A year bridged by letters speaking of a melancholy she would have teased mercilessly if it were being experienced by anyone but herself. A year that seems to stretch on for far longer than it is.

She’s tracing the trail of x’s after his name like a lovesick teenager — _which she most definitely is not_ — when her brother appears in the doorway, arms crossed and his boomerang hanging from a loop on his trousers, shaking his head like she’s the gravest disappointment he’s ever known.

“Still miss him, huh?”

She sighs and fold Zuko’s latest letter into a neat square to tuck under her pillow. “You ask me that every day, Sokka. Are you expecting a different answer?”

He shrugs. “Maybe more like half hoping. I like Zuko and all, but… ya know. He’s there, you’re here. And it kind of sucks seeing you all mopey all the time.”

“You’ll be exactly the same when Suki heads back to Kyoshi Island at the end of the month.”

“Kyoshi’s way closer to here than the Fire Nation, though.” He sits beside her and tucks his gloved hands into his sleeves. “And we’re not talking about me, anyway.”

She nudges him with her elbow. “Only because you’re a thousand times the sap I am, and you know it.”

“Don’t think I forgot that stupid hat you made for Jet.”

“It was not stupid! And don’t think I haven’t seen you hard at work carving a betrothal necklace for Suki.” The blood leeches from his face, and she tempers her words with a smile. “It’s pretty, from what I’ve been able to peek of it. When do you think you’ll ask her?”

“I don't know,” he mumbles. He digs into his coat pocket, pulls out a whalebone charm fixed to a strip of pale green ribbon and holds it out for her to see properly. “It’s not ready yet, but maybe the next time she visits. Maybe in a couple of years. Maybe never. I haven’t decided.”

“You seem like you’ve decided plenty.”

Sokka shakes his head. “Only this part.”

“It looks pretty done to me.” She reaches out, tracing the sharp and delicate design of a wave wrapping around a fan. “These aren’t our tradition,” she points out quietly. “What made you want to carve one, anyway?”

“I know they’re not our tradition, but they are kind of _ours_.” He flicks the charm sitting in the hollow of her throat. “After seeing our mother wear that necklace, then you… I guess I couldn’t imagine not making one for Suki.”

She rests her head on her brother’s shoulder and smiles. “I’m sure she’ll love it.”

“I hope so,” he says with a nervous chuckle as he pockets it again. “Otherwise I…”

“She will. I guess it’s silly at this point to ask if you’re sure, though.”

“Yeah, I think I’m a bit beyond sure now. But what about you, Katara? Are you sure?”

“About Zuko?” She sighs. “I don’t know. I think so, but it’s hard to tell when I haven’t seen him in so long. Distance makes things fuzzy.”

“Well — and don’t think I’m advocating anything here — but maybe you should hitch a ride over, Katara. Make sure.”

“You think so?”

Sokka coughs. “I may not be ready yet for my baby sister to run off with some guy —”

“— There’s two measly years between us, Sokka,” she says dryly.

“Yeah, see? Baby sister. Are you gonna let me make my point or what?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Bless me with your wisdom, brother mine.”

“Like I said, I’m not ready for my baby sister to run off with some guy, even if _some guy_ is pretty cool… but it’s kind of nice to be sure. I don’t want to hog all the sureness for myself.”

“That’s as close to a blessing as I’m going to get, isn’t it?”

He snorts and stands, dusting a fine layer of snow off his legs on onto her wolf-pelt rug. “Since when do you need my blessing to do anything?”

The next morning, Katara wakes before sunrise and shoves clothes into a bag with none of the caution or foresight she advised to Zuko when they were together last. She bids farewell to her father, brother, and Gran-Gran, and catches a ride on a merchant trading vessel heading to the Fire Nation, with no solid plans for when she’s to return. She spends the (normally) two week-long journey standing at the stern, coaxing the ocean into swift but gentle currents, and in less than ten days, the Caldera City harbour grow larger and louder and taller on the horizon.

When she disembarks. Into a crash of sailors and fishermen and townspeople crowding the wharf for the morning seafood auctions, it occurs to her that she has no plan beyond this point. The crowd jostles past her on every side, and the longer she stands there wondering what in Yue’s name she’s even doing — she’s never been so stupidly reckless in her life! — the more she thinks she should just freeze herself a little ice floe and haul herself back South.

But a familiar figure with familiar hands stops in front of her, and familiar eyes and a familiar smile meet hers from beneath a dark hood. In that second, she’s not sure whether she should laugh or cry or some other ridiculous thing, but he’s here, right in front of her, and nothing about this particular moment in time feels real.

“Zu —”

Zuko sets his fingers on her lips like a bolt of lightning and shakes his head. _Not here_ , he mouths.

He takes her hand, and the touch of it is like nothing she ever knew she could miss. He adjusts his hood and leads her through the crowd and away from the water, closer to the marketplace and towards a narrow alley she recalls with great fondness.

He pushes her against a stone wall, pins her there with his hips, and wrenches his hood down. She doesn’t have long to rove his face, to note the scant shadow of stubble dusting his chin and cheeks, or the way his face has leaned and sharpened into that of a man, or the way his hair reaches his shoulders now, before he’s hissing her name and kissing her the way she’s dreamed of for the past year.

And she decides very quickly that kiss one hundred was absolutely worth the wait.

It’s the strangest combination of urgent and tender, the scrape of teeth and the gentle lave of a tongue. His hands don’t seem to know where to land, gliding up and down her waist from the edge of her breast to the rise of her hip, but his mouth is reverent on hers, every stroke and quiet murmur like a prayer. She wraps her legs around his waist, so light and airy that she knows she’d fall without his hands and hips supporting her, tangles her hands in his hair and returns it all inch for dizzying, terrifying, wonderful inch.

When they pull apart seconds, minutes, hours later, his lips are cherry-red and his eyes are muddled, and she’s sure he’s never been more beautiful. “How did you know?” she asks breathlessly. “I never sent word.”

“Sokka.” He says with a shrug, and the most ridiculous smile she’s ever seen on him. She can’t decide if it’s incongruous on his face, all scar and molten eyes, or if it’s perfect, matching the smile she’s certain is on her, too; they always have been a mirrored set. “He wrote it about five minutes after you left, he said.”

She frowns, but it doesn’t last long. “I wanted it to be a surprise.”

“Don't worry, it still was. It’s not like I knew what day you were arriving.”

“So you’ve spent the past how many mornings at the dock, standing, waiting?”

“Just the past two,” he says with a shrug and a growing blush. “I figured if you were half as excited as I was, you would have, uh… hastened the journey.”

She sets a hand against his cheek, feeling the fire bloom beneath his skin. “I was,” she admits. “I did. Nine and a half days instead of fourteen.”

“Impressive,” he says, quirking a brow. “Tell me, Katara, what could possibly have been so urgent that you would rush here like that?”

She swallows, smiles, pushes his hair back behind his ears. “I’m here to make sure,” she whispers.

He grins like he somehow knows exactly what she means, and kisses her again.

_One hundred and one_ is pretty good, too.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plot? In my supposedly plotless, very self-indulgent kissy-face drabble collection? It's more likely than you think.
> 
> Yeah, so I resubmitted my thesis and took some time off from writing to recharge, now I'm back to drabbling (even though this definitely can't be called a drabble) for this collection. Which apparently has a plot now. Dang it.

In the week she’s been in the Fire Nation, her count has climbed from _one hundred and one_ to just _one hundred and thirteen_.

It was never anything she noticed before. In the days after the Agni Kai and Aang’s victory, it never properly occurred to her that she was sneaking around with the Fire Lord. It’s only ever been her and Zuko, with nothing else, barely even air between them.

And she wonders if she’s stupid to think it would still be like that now. Because now it’s incredibly, unnervingly obvious who she’s now only _trying_ to sneak around with.

It starts a mere hour after her arrival with a quick peck that feels equally as stolen as those long ones in shadowed nooks between summit meetings. They’re not two steps into the palace when he’s set upon by his chief advisor — a reedy, twitchy, and irritatingly efficient man named Wan, she learns — who doesn’t so much as glance at Katara as he implores Zuko for his signature on several _very important documents_ that he absolutely must read in person, right that very second lest, Katara assumes, they spontaneously combust. Zuko shrugs helplessly, presses the quickest of kisses to her lips ( _one hundred and four_ ), and a promise to see her later to her temple, leaving Katara with an increasingly flustered handmaiden to whisk Katara to her rooms and promptly sprint away.

(They’ve never been intentionally secretive about whatever it is they are doing with each other, but Katara still frowns when it seems the entire household staff know about it the next day).

Later that first evening, another as they pass in the dining hall, her leaving and him arriving late with dark, heavy bags under his eyes. He pulls her close around her waist and presses a quick, but warm kiss to her lips ( _one hundred and five_ ) that feels like relief and straining tension all at once. She stays with him while he eats, his words turning to slurs before he passes out by his half-full bowl of baked custard. The kitchen staff tell her this is a regular occurrence, and she assumes they’re right, because it’s happened every night since she arrived.

On the second, third, and fourth days, she wakes far earlier than she usually would and makes her way to the private gardens where he does his morning meditations. They don’t even make it to within a foot of each other before Zuko’s chief advisor comes bustling in with a scroll as long as Zuko is tall and demands Zuko wash and ready himself for a long morning of meetings. This happens so consistently that by the fifth day, she stops coming altogether and starts watching him from a balcony instead. Her daydreams, at least, don’t get interrupted.

She swears it’s a conspiracy. Anytime the Spirits deem them too close, a meeting starts somewhere, or an advisor discovers an emergency requiring urgent attention, or some other ridiculous thing. His hands never have a chance to dip lower than her hips, if they ever get there at all, and her lips never have a chance to loosen the tight set of his jaw. She applies all lingering (and entirely unwarranted, she reminds herself) frustration to her work at a women’s clinic in the middle of the city, helping the other medics there keep up with a post-war baby boom that doesn’t seem to be ending anytime soon.

(Though she finds it extremely difficult to be frustrated for long in a place filled with so much joy).

She’s still smiling as she trudges back up to the palace, an ever-present pair of silent guards following her at a safe distance. It’s far later than she’d usually arrive back; candles light the palace aglow in the deep dark as she cuts through the main courtyard garden to the palace living quarters, dismissing the guards and humming the last distance to her rooms.

There’s a light flickering in the gap between the bottom of her room’s door and the floor. She frowns. She didn’t leave a candle burning before she left, did she?

She uncorks the water-skin at her hip and holds her breath as she inches the door open.

“Zuko?” Her shoulders slump at the sight of him perched like a hawk at the end of her bed. He’s shed the heavy outer cloaks and mantle, no crown or shoes, either, just him in a loose white shirt and deep, almost blood-red sleep pants. Just Zuko, no Fire Lord. “What are you doing here?”

His eyes snap to hers and before she can blink, he’s up and crossed the room, dragging her into his arms. “Katara,” he says, the warm, heavy exhale tickling her hairline. “You’re… you’re later than usual.”

“A woman in the city was having twins,” she mumbles into his shoulder. She presses her nose to his neck and breathes him in, oranges and cinnamon and something like wood smoke. “It was a complicated birth.”

Zuko looks down at her and frowns. “Is everyone all right?”

Katara smiles to herself. “We weren’t sure for a while, but the smaller twin started crying just before I left. I’ll check on them again tomorrow, but I think they should be fine.”

He nods, some of that tension in his jaw melting away. “That’s good.”

She presses a kiss to the tightest point, grinning to herself at the shudder that runs along his body, and pulls back. “I’m, uh… just going to change into some sleeping clothes.”

“Uh, okay.” His cheeks flush red, and he buries a cough into his fist. “Would you like me to leave?”

“I… no, that’s okay.” Her voice seems much higher than usual. “Just… maybe turn around, please?”

“Of course.” He coughs again as he turns to face the door and links his hands above the small of his back. “I just wanted to tell you that I’m sorry we haven’t been able to spend more time together since you arrived.”

“It’s okay,” she says, untying the knots of her sash with trembling hands and pulling her tunic over her head. She finds a loose pair of blue pants hanging in the wardrobe, the fabric as soft as any fur, and tugs them on. “I wasn’t sure that we would, considering I never even told you I was coming.”

“Still, though. I… I missed you so much this past year, Katara. As my friend and… whatever else it is we are to each other. The letters were wonderful, but it’s something else entirely having you right here, in front of me.”

“I missed you, too.” She pulls on a sleeveless white top and clears her throat. “You can turn around now, by the way.”

“Oh, good.” He turns, and his cheeks are as red as ever, and he takes a step into her space, barely any room at all between them. “It’s just, I know you came here to… make sure. Trust me, I want you to be sure, too. I’ve got… an extremely vested interest in making sure you’re sure.”

“Do you, now?”

He nods, as serious as death itself. “Very much so. So, I was thinking. There’s this daily meeting with my advisors and other high-ranking ministers, for two hours each morning from ten to midday. I don’t strictly have to be there — they can catch me up on everything at the end of the week or send me the notes — but I go anyway, just so I can monitor it all personally. I think they’d be glad to have me off their backs for a while.”

She reaches out and takes his hand, running her thumb along the sharp rise and fall of his knuckles. “I don’t think it’s possible to too-closely monitor a nation in the fallout of a century-long war, Zuko.”

“But it’s time I can spend with you while you’re here.”

“I’m not more important than the Fire Nation,” she gently chides him. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I don’t like that I can’t put you first, Katara,” he whispers. “But I can give you this for as long as you’re here.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to inconvenience you, or your council.”

“You could do no such thing,” he assures her.

“I’d attend the meetings with you if I could. But, you know,” she waves a hand, “rules and all.”

“True, but you’ll never know how much the offer means to me. Besides, in a few years you’ll be old enough to be considered for an ambassadorial position and a standing invitation to all meetings, if that’s something you’ve ever thought of.”

“I don’t know. Is it something you’ve thought of?”

He sucks in a long breath and watches her with dark eyes. “Honestly, Katara? I imagine you in a very different position.”

She swallows. “You seem like you’re pretty sure about it.”

He nods. “I think I am.” He reaches out and tugs gently at a lock of hair falling in her eyes. “A crown would suit you,” he murmurs, almost to himself.

Her voice is barely above a whisper. “You think so?”

“I know so.” And before she can say anything else, feel anything else, he leans in and steals her lips in his own, swallowing her words and leaving nothing but heat and sensation behind. His hands pool low on her waist and pull her flush against him, and she lets out a moan at his warmth, at the static slide of skin and muscle beneath her fingertips, all the things she hasn’t had a chance to properly explore in over a year.

Kiss _one hundred and thirteen_ is wonderful and frightening in equal measure, and as dangerous to her sanity as their first.

When he pulls away, lips and cheeks cherry-red and his eyes somehow dazed and focussed all at once, he says to her, low and rasping, “I know it's too much, too early, too soon, but tell me I’m not the only one who sees this. Tell me you're as scared as I am. Tell me I’m not alone in this, Katara, please.”

And her answer is easy, terrifying.

“No, you’re not.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, I'm not 100% about this one. There's parts I like and parts I don't. I might come back and edit this another time with fresh eyes, but for now, enjoy the product of my almost-2am insomnia writing.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like this one. It's cute.
> 
> Unbeta'd, like always, because I am a heathen.

Kiss _one hundred and twenty-one_ happens in the last moments of a quiet two hours spent by a pond in the private gardens after breakfast.

(A quiet two hours where neither mentions the depth and breadth of what they spoke of the night before. For this, Katara is more grateful than she realises).

They sit hand-in-hand and side-by-side, an empty picnic basket and a pile of mangled bread rolls between them, and a flock of quacking turtle-ducks swimming in circles in front of them. The heat of him is pleasant at her side, and her cheeks sting from hours of smiling and laughing. No crown sits in his loose hair, no mantle sits on his shoulders, and for those quiet two hours it’s easy to forget everything else waiting for him, for them, on the other side of the temporary veil they've built to separate them from reality.

“Do you regret not going to your meeting?” Katara asks, tipping her head against his shoulder.

She feels him let out a long breath. “I thought I might, at first,” Zuko admits, the fingers of his free hand plucking at the soft, carpet-like grass. “But in the end, not at all.”

“Good.” She smiles. “Me, neither.”

“Do you want to do it again tomorrow?”

She sighs. “You know we don’t have to do this every day, Zuko.”

“I know, but until I’m told that my presence is absolutely, unequivocally necessary, I will be spending my mornings with you. Unless, of course, you change your mind.”

She squeezes the hand in hers. “Unlikely. I’m here to spend time with you, Zuko. Believe me, I _want_ to spend time with you.”

“Funny, you’re proving to be an extremely hard sell.”

“I just don’t want to be an inconvenience while I’m here.”

He lets out a snort. “I think it’s hilarious that you’re so conscious of the needs of my council, because I don’t think you’d be even half as accommodating as you are now if you were in the room with them.”

With a sniff, she says, “I'll rephrase, then: I’m not worried about inconveniencing them, I’m worried about inconveniencing you.”

“Then please listen to me when I say you aren’t. These mornings are as much for me as they are for you. Besides, I think they might be putting _you_ out more than me.” He glances at her and smiles a quiet little half-smile that sends her heart into somersaults. “The head healer at the woman’s clinic you’ve been volunteering at has only praise for you.”

She pauses. “You’ve heard from Healer Lao?”

“She sent a note to thank me. Apparently, she thought I sent you there.”

She hums and tosses another handful of crumbs to the waiting turtle-ducks. “Well, they can have me all afternoon. I’m sure they’ll be fine without me in the mornings.”

“Not unlike my council.” He lets go of her hand and wraps his arm around her waist, tugging her closer. “We have maybe five more minutes before we have to go. Anything you want to do?”

She pretends to think. “Are there any more of those dumplings?”

He casts a quick glance into the empty basket. “Fresh out, I’m afraid. If we hurried, I’m sure we could get the cook to bring us some more.”

“No, that’s okay. Besides, I can think of a better way to spend these last few minutes.”

He’s smiling as she cups his scarred cheek and gently draws him down, and it’s a sight she’s not sure she’ll ever get used to, Zuko’s very transparent, unguarded smiles. The quirk of his lips is gentle on hers, slow and steady and somehow decadent, like they have all the time in the world instead of just five minutes.

Kiss _one hundred and twenty-one_ feels like a bodily echo of their words last night, and her heart races and slows at all the contradictions he lets her see at moments like these, when he’s hard and soft, safe and dangerous, calm and storm.

When they pull apart, she makes an odd sound like a whimper. She cracks her eyes open and finds him watching her oddly.

“What?”

His smile is reddened, pleased, and a little smug, too. “Are you keeping count of the amount of times we’ve kissed?”

She slams her mouth shut. “Did I say that out loud?”

His smile widens. “Yes.”

“I…” She drops her hands to her lap. “Maybe.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I guess I started and just never really stopped.”

He hums. “And what did you just say we were up to?”

“One hundred and twenty-one.”

“I thought it would have been more than that.”

“I suppose it would be, if I were counting kisses in other places.”

She realises her words a moment too late. Zuko grins like a lion-shark, even as bright colour like fire fills his cheeks, and lets out a loud, barking laugh that has her own cheeks burning in turn.

“You know what I meant,” she mutters.

He grins and stares at the pond, but the pink in his cheeks goes nowhere. “I guess I do.” He nudges her with his elbow and stands, offering his hand to help her up. “Come on. They’ll be serving lunch soon.”

“You’re going to be insufferable about this now, aren’t you?” she grumbles as she picks up the empty picnic basket.

He kisses her again, just a quick peck that raises a wave of goosebumps over her, and takes her free hand to lead her back inside. “One hundred and twenty-two. And I’m probably not going to think of anything else all day.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been kinda sick lately (not that sort of sick, I promise), so apologies for the shorter length (and maybe abrupt quality) of this chapter.

Kiss one hundred and twenty-four takes her by surprise, if only because since she arrived, she’s so rarely been able to see Zuko at night.

He’s silent, but his shadow is long and far-flung in front of her in the flickering candlelight. She grins to herself as it closes in, overlapping hers as his warm, firm arm curls around her waist and pulls her into an alcove as dark as the night sky.

All she knows in that moment is the thud of his heart pressed tight against hers, the radiant heat of lips, close but not close enough, the soft brush of his hair falling loose from the topknot against her forehead. She holds her breath and _waits, waits, waits_ , until a golden flash of fire ignites in his hand and illuminates his face.

Her smile fades to a frown. She sets her hand against his cheek, runs her thumb over the purple, papery skin below his eye. Flickering light settles in the angles of his face and paints his scar a deep, dark red. “Zuko?”

He shakes his head and sets his free hand over hers. “It’s fine. I’m fine, I promise. Just tired.”

“It’s late,” she tells him, her thumb and gaze straying down to the edge of his lips. “Uh, really late. You should go to sleep.”

He nods. “I will, soon,” he promises. “But, before that —”

The fire in his hand is gone and his lips are on hers before she can blink.

The scent and taste of smoke are sharp in her senses, on his lips and tongue and the shared air of their breaths. She wonders idly, as she clutches at the silken lapels of his robes and tugs him closer, if this is normal, if his inner fire does err towards smoking, ruby embers at the end of a long night. If that’s why his hands are moving so maddeningly slow along her waist and hips, brushing like sparks along the undersides of her breasts. She lets out a broken breath and sucks in another just as deep, her heart pounding with so many things she can’t name. It strikes her that in this alcove, behind this curtain, in this darkness that swallows them whole, there’s a million paths their hands and lips and tongues and bodies could take, and she’s not sure which one she’s hoping for most.

But Zuko pulls away, just barely — still kissing her with words — and all those paths close to her for now. She can't say for certain if it's relief or annoyance careening along her veins now. “One hundred and twenty-four,” he pants, as wrecked as she is, and she wonders where his mind is now, too. “Still seems like a low number to me. Are you sure I haven’t addled you along the way?”

She laughs, bright and loud in the otherwise quiet — he’s more of a dork than she’s ever given him credit for — and kisses him again, lingering there and pulling away with a sigh. “One hundred and twenty-five. And yes, I’m certain.” She lets go of his robes, smooths her hands over the wrinkles she’s sure she left there. “Now go to bed.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Banged one of these together because it's been a while, and I felt like it. Enjoy :)

Kiss _one hundred and fifty-three_ outs them to Zuko’s entire ministerial staff.

She’s not sure which it is — the promise of the full moon later that night echoing like thunder in her blood, or the bright, blazing midday sun sizzling in Zuko’s — but there seems to be far more than just _them_ in their touches.

Zuko has her backed up on the desk used for daily council meetings, a long, mahogany thing hundreds, maybe thousands of years old, both freezing and blazing beneath her back. Lips flame down along her neck and over the exposed plane of her collarbones. Her hands have disappeared beneath his robes, clutching at the infuriatingly complex layers in her quest for skin that gets thwarted at every turn.

This isn’t especially like her. Or like him, for that matter. They’re not often together at times where the heights of their bending intersect like this, and perhaps this is a good thing. Right now, she feels absolutely no need to pull her lips from his, no desire to move his hands from where they span high on her waist, thumbs brushing like willow leaves against the undersides of her breasts. How can she possibly get a thing done? Doesn’t he have a country to run, and a meeting soon?

The council room door creaks open, and the tittering of voices Katara thought were harmless miles away only seconds ago fade into sharp, shocked gasps.

The meeting is sooner than soon, apparently.

Zuko freezes against her and opens his eyes, blinks blearily down at her as he draws away as though in a haze. She swallows and sits up, following him back. For a long moment, no one says a word, not her or Zuko, not the two-dozen council ministers wearing a mix of expressions from rage to surprise to delight to horror.

Whether the creaking door is a blessing or a curse is something she’ll be pondering later.

A woman in the front, Councilwoman Yen, Katara thinks her name is, quickly spans her arms across the doorway to prevent the others from filing in. “Apologies, Fire Lord, My Lady, we’ll just… give you a moment to compose yourselves.”

Councilwoman Yen giggles as she bows and closes the door. Zuko blinks some more. Katara clears her throat and readjusts the front tie of her dress with stiff fingers.

She lets out a short chuckle, and Zuko’s gaze swivels to hers like lightning. “What just happened?”

“I don’t know,” he says, as raspy as ever. “They didn’t say anything…”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“I suppose we’ll have to wait and find out.” He reaches up and pushes lock of hair back behind her ear. “Your lips are really red.”

She breaks into a silly smile. “So are yours.”

He smiles back. “What are you going to do now?”

“I’ll head into the city, see if any of the clinics could use me this afternoon.”

He nods, swallows. “I’ll see you tonight?”

She smooths her hands over the wrinkled lapels of his robe, where she clutched them tight only moments before. Maybe sparring would be a better idea for next time. Less clothes to rumple. “Yeah, I’ll see you tonight.”

She kisses him again quickly ( _one hundred and fifty-four_ ), only maybe not so quickly because there’s still this thing in their veins, and would submitting to it again really be that bad an idea? — before she manages to hop off that very old, very large table and darts for the door, hoping very much that the council members have made themselves scarce for now.

“Wait, Katara?” Zuko calls, a note of panic in his voice.

She stops at the door. “Yeah?”

He still looks ridiculous, robes still a mess, gesturing wildly around the room and at the floor, and she swallows another laugh. “I just... before you go… do you know what happened to my crown?”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm @ally147writes on Tumblr if you want to chat, or even drop some prompts or ideas for this collection on me :)


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